I meet the Mediterranean coast at Saint Raphaël and head east, cycling the remaining ¾ of the Côte d’Azure (aka The French Riviera) to the Italian border at Ventimiglia. Then, in Italy, I cycle the Italian Riviera di Ponente, (or the ‘Western Riviera’) to Vesima, just before Genoa.
This, guys, was a superb cycling experience, with spectacular views nearly all the way and plenty of opportunities for camping. Put it on your bucket-list – in fact put the whole 500 km from Toulon to Viareggio on your list.
Remember: Zoom-in to see details of the Route!
Monday 5 September 2022. Les Arcs to Nice |88 km|
It was a busy road to be cycling on to get to the “Med”. For me , that was the beach at San Raphaël, an impressively salubrious and ‘old money’ part of the Riviera, and once I got there, it was a beautiful ride all the way to Nice.
But, back to more mundane matters, the bike was still kangaroo-hopping like crazy and I thought I’d better pull in early to see if I could get something done about it. There was a bikeshop in Nice, or so Google told me, but it is closed on Mondays, so I thoughtI would stay somewhere nearby for the night.
The first two campgrounds I tried were already closed for the season, so I seized upon the chance to pitch my tent at the next one. This was Camping La Vieille Ferme where the pitch, for €21, was nothing extraordinary but they did have a pool, a bar and a cafe all in good working order. What else do you need? It was also vast and quite full – Germans mostly, at least all the people on those deck chairs around the pool seemed to be. I had spaghetti carbonara and 5 beers for dinner, I’m not at all proud to divulge.
Over my beers I got talking to my camp neighbours, Peter and Rick, two old Dutch bikers on Harleys – well, old as in early 60s I suppose. They were mechanically-minded and keen to help when we discussed the out-of-roundness problem of my back wheel, since I already had my bike upside-down with he back wheel off when we got talking.
The problem, Rick pointed out after careful scrutiny, was that the beading for about a 40° arc of the tyre (he’s very precise) was refusing to bed down into the rim, so we deflated the tube, lubricated the tyre with liquid soap and re-inflated the tube. Hey presto! Fixed. Well it sounds easy enough when I put it that way, but in reality this took place over several hours, and several beers, and at least 3 repeated attempts of deflating, removing, refitting and re-inflating, with me doing all the work and them chipping in with suggestions, before we could coax that tyre back onto the rim properly.
Peter and I would have given up long ago, but Rick’s perseverence paid off as he could see the little improvements each time, but the clincher came when Rick suggested I give it a try, so I hopped on and the tyre just popped straight back in.
Tuesday 6 September 2002. Nice to Diano Marino |118km|
This was another day of spectacular coastal scenery with winding cliff-top roads and vertiginous ragged drops into the ocean, all packed into the one of the world’s premier millionaire playgrounds. Am I missing anything there? Well, the beaches themselves aren’t all that great. They’re usually narrow, as you’d expect with such steeply-plunging shore lines, and they’re mostly stony too.
It’s all about the built environment here, and humans’ ability to tame rugged nature. That’s what you’re paying for. [Hmm. Quite lyrical]. Anyway, it’s all rather noice, and you’d rather not be anywhere else.
I cycled right through into the beating heart of Monaco, in itself a fantastic ride, and stopped at Parc des Moulons for a coffee with two friends who live in Monaco, Paul and Rob, and continued on my way to the non-border at Ventimiglio and on into Italy along their Riviera Ponente.
The Italian side is a lot more down-market than the French side, that’s for sure, and the change is instant as soon as you cross into Italy (there’s no longer a border as such). But a lot more carefree holiday activity too, and generally a more welcoming attitude for the spender of the meagre vacationeering dollar. Just like on the French side most of the beaches are closed off for general access, or at least ramdom beachgoers are discouraged, and you have to park yourself under some establishment’s umbrellas and eat their food and drink all day to be there. At least with the Italians it’s a lot cheaper-looking (I never tried one either side).
All great days have to come to an end I suppose, and I reluctantly pulled in to Camping Diano Marina. I’d forgotten to eat all day and was starving, so it was time to stop anyway. It’s only a small campsite and is up a small laneway on the ‘wrong’ side of the railway line – you pass through a culvert under the line to get to ‘their’ private stony beach – but it has all the amenities, and I had a large pitch to myself that I reckon was meant for a cycling group.
I went for a proper swim in the Med – my first attempt since Agde at Easter time when the water was so cold I could only put my toe in – and the water was beautiful. I rode into town to get some cash and stayed on to have a nice spaghetti marinara and polpo dinner at La Taberna restaurant. There was no internet at the campground so the ulterior motive with La Taberna was to use their internet to download all the Italian route maps onto my Bosch GPS, which I did and it worked fine, although it took over an hour.
The camp management made a big fuss about having Champion’s League football showing in their bar, Juventus v PSG – they were all Juve fans – but I only stayed for the first half and went off to my tent for a well-earned sleep. Juventus lost 1-2 and the natives were becoming a bit restless.
Wednesday 7 September 2022. Diano Marino to Vesima |102 km|
This was a day of some exceptionaly good climbing with incredible views, cycling on the twisting main road along the coastal cliffs between little seaside towns clustered around picturesque bays.
Camping La Vesima wasn’t much to write home about (so why am I, you ask? Simple. To remember) . As you can see, my pitch was jammed right up against the railway embankment, and so most of the racket from the trains as they came roaring through passed right over my head to the caravaners down closer by the sea. I went for a couple of swims down on the steep little beach that consists of well-rounded flat slate pebbles. They call that a beach! The heave and pull of the ocean surge made it difficult to get in and out of the water, and you had to scramble up a steep little slope of tumbling pebbles to do it. It feels and looks a bit awkward, as in geriatric awkward. I brought one home as a souvenir. A pebble, that is.
I enjoyed a nice dinner at a cafe overlooking the beach and even talked to an Australian guy from Wollongong who was travelling around in a campervan. Later 5 young German lads pitched their tent almost on top of mine and proceeded to get stuck in to 2 cartons of beer and making a huge racket until 01.00 am. I had to yell at them twice to shut up, but they were friendly enough and even apologised next morning. I was young once.
Thus ends the best couple of days of cycling I’ve ever done so far, but better was yet to come over the next few days.
– ends –
Day 58: Europe in 2022 so far: 5,542 km in 51 days of cycling
Nights in hotels 27
Night on ferry 1
Night in B&B 1
Nights in tent 29
Bike maintenance:
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- Rohloff oil change (Toulouse): km 0 (20,505 km on bike)
- Repairs to rear kickstand (Toulouse)
- 12 punctures:
- 2 punctures rear (Toulouse to Agde): km 250
- 4 punctures front (Toulouse to Agde): km 300
- 2 punctures rear (Hull to Birtley): km 2,730
- 4 punctures rear (Alnwick to Berwick): km 2,940
- 4 punctures rear (Sorges): km 5,016
- 1 puncture rear (Les Arcs): km 5,268
- 2 new tubes (Montelimar) km 780
- Two new Ortlieb Front Roller panniers (€140 Koblenz): km 1,870
- 2 sets new brake pads (£8 Boston): km 2,710
- Rear pannier rack broken; temp fix with cable ties (Bamburgh):km 3, 020
- 2 new tubes (Scremerston, UK): km 3,050
- 1 new tyre (Scremerston, UK) km 2,030
- New Gates CDX Carbon Belt (€87 Lyon): km 5,045. (25, 550 total for the belt)
- New Goretex rain jacket (€220 Lyon)
- 1 new tyre, Schwalbe Racing Ralph, (€62, incl. tubes, Cavaillon) km 5,167
- 2 new tubes Cavaillon km 5,167
- Refit rear tyre due to kangaroo-ing effect (Nice) km 5,426
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